Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century
by John A. Farrell
776 pages
Little, Brown and Company
Published: Mar 2001

Tip O’Neill (1912-1994) is a colorful, larger-than-life political figure and anyone interested in his brash, back room style of politics will find much to enjoy in this biography by John Farrell (author of an even better biography of Richard Nixon).

Farrell invested five years researching his subject’s life and his knowledge of O’Neill often seems encyclopedic. From O’Neill’s ancestry to the last moments of his service as the 47th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, every nuance of his public life seems to have been captured and memorialized.

Particularly fascinating is Farrell’s examination of…